wpifandomcom-20200213-history
WPI Whip Club
The WPI Whip Club is a joke created in 2019. According to the joke, it's back story and history are as follows. Originally founded in C Term of 1981-1982, the WPI Whip Club has a rich history of interaction with the campus police department among others. Originally offering a place to pick up the mantle of Indiana Jones prop control. The club had a modern day revitalization during the explosion of cheap para cord availability in the early 2000s and has earned a cult status at WPI. Passing the whip both literally and so to speak from generation to generation. Today the club exists to promote whip safety, ownership, and pride on and off campus. The Whip Club, now stylized as Whip Pi Club has had a very spotty relationship with faculty and chooses not to be listed on the campus club list, opting for freedom, style, and perceived exclusivity from other clubs. History The club was founded at some point in 1981 likely in response to the massive popularity of the first film in the Indiana Jones Franchise, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Like most early clubs at WPI, the exact foundation date is hard to pin down as it began in someones apartment or common room. The Club has prided itself through it's history as a club of rebels and outliers thus preventing them for ever registering though faculty. While the cash flow would be beneficial to club members, they have an avid disliking of faculty imposed rules and prefer to operate in the grey area. Though it is worth noting that certain times in the club's history there has been internal conflict over how poorly they advertise the club to new students and how much easier it would be to spread whip ownership if they operated in a more official capacity. Though most club affiliates likely believe that an "official" operation would result in the club losing it's personality and possibly even its whips. Notably a push in 1994 to put up a table at the activities in an unofficial capacity actually happened. With four members carrying a table out of the wedge and onto the right of the field. While details vary it is likely they kept the table up for a few hours eventually getting kicked out when they started cracking over the crowd. Due to recent pricing of large quantities of para cord the club is finally opening back up in C term of the 2018-19 school year with new members able to join in the fun for as little as $15. Campus Collaborations WPIWA: WPI Wireless Association is almost definitely the most notable collaborator having worked alongside Whip Club on numerous occasions. * An attempt to create a radio station on campus with content provided mainly by the whip club quickly became one of the wider and more famous campus happenings involving the whip club. Many students are familiar with the BD-FM channel that existed for a several months between b and d term in 2002-03 school year. The channel was beset with issues from the start. With almost 20 years of stories and club notes to draw off content generation was not a huge issue, in the beginning. The first major hit to the channel was the name which lead to school attempting to shut it down for "supporting lewd and gratuitous humor with an emphasis on rule breaking..." ''The channel really started running into problems after about three weeks when the content had a notable decrease in quality with much more applications from unaffiliated members passing through the filters which were simply overworked students quickly entering finals week. * There was a short liver and much worse known drive to generate some ''"Whip-i-wa" Wireless Association & Whip Club merchandise at some point around 2007. Campus historians have still not been able to find any firm proof that anything was printed as by this point the Whip Club was getting a very strong and disagreeable reputation. The reputation for profane humor and behavior caused the club to phase quickly into retaliative obscurity on campus and the WPIWA club now, no longer publicly acknowledges the existence of the Whip Club. Though there are rumors of a modern day revitalization of the past relationship between the two clubs. Martial Arts Clubs: There are a lot of rumors of collaborations between the martial arts clubs on campus and the whip club but it is unlikely that anything outside of private exploration occurred between the clubs. Orchestra: WPI Brass Ensemble, Orchestra to was supposed to perform a rendition of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture with actual cannons provided by some upperclassmen. Though as soon as the flyers were out, faculty started clamping down on the members for the obvious massive health and safety violations such a performance would cause. As the here unnamed parties providing the cannons also happened to be members of the whip club and provided almost equally loud alternative in the form of bull whips. The concert was still put on hold due to "a deafening lack of seriousness on the parts of the guest performers."